


all we can do is keep breathing

by TouchTheExoplanets



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, post 6x10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-30 11:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19852423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TouchTheExoplanets/pseuds/TouchTheExoplanets
Summary: “You’ll be no use to them dead on your feet,” Gabriel had said when Clarke insisted they go back to Sanctum for their people. “Your heart needs rest. After a trauma like that, it might just give out on you if you don’t give it time to recuperate.”Looking over at her heart, slumped on a chair, fighting his drooping eyelids because he’s terrified to let her out of his sight, Clarke has to agree.





	all we can do is keep breathing

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is. Here is what I do know. 6x10 _broke_ me, and I am very excited for 6x11, but I won't be able to watch it until **AUGUST 11** so this is my way of coping.
> 
> RIP me and also all of you other Bellarke shippers because none of us are alive after yesterday's episode.

“You need to stop dying on me,” Bellamy says, later.

Gabriel and Octavia have left the tent to talk privately. Clarke thinks she heard them say _anomaly_ or something, but, for once, she couldn’t care less; and, anyway, she half-suspects that they just made excuses to give her some privacy.

“You’ll be no use to them dead on your feet,” Gabriel had said when Clarke insisted they go back to Sanctum for their people. “Your heart needs rest. After a trauma like that, it might just give out on you if you don’t give it time to recuperate.”

Looking over at her heart, slumped on a chair, fighting his drooping eyelids because he’s terrified to let her out of his sight, Clarke has to agree.

She has no strength to come up with words of comfort. She doesn’t even know what they would be—an apology? She can’t apologize for being murdered. A reassurance? She can’t guarantee it won’t happen again. Everywhere she goes, it seems, she has a target on her back.

All she ends up doing is stretching her fingers out, searching for him. In the liminal space between her bed and his chair, her hand feels small and empty and vulnerable.

His fingers interlace with hers. She sighs and fights the sleep tugging at her weary brain.

“I’ll try,” she murmurs, in answer.

Bellamy squeezes her fingers in reply.

The words come to her. “I’m sorry for scaring you,” Clarke says. “I didn’t mean to.”

He lifts his head to meet her eyes. Whatever he sees makes his eyebrows draw together. “It wasn’t—” he starts, then stops. He shakes his head. “The only thing that scared me was the half a moment when I thought you had given up.”

“That’s not true,” Clarke says.

“No,” Bellamy admits, “but that’s what scared me the most.”

Clarke tightens her hold on his hand. He says nothing more. His breaths come more steadily, and she thinks he has fallen asleep.

Her whole body aches, especially her head. She can barely think through the pain and exhaustion, but she doesn’t want to sleep. She wants to savor these moments when she can feel air in her lungs and a hand in hers; she hadn’t realized these were things that could be taken from her.

“You have to promise,” Bellamy says, startling her, “that you’ll keep coming back. To me.”

Clarke’s addled brain can’t comprehend his words. “I— what?”

“I can’t ask you to stay with me,” he continues, teeth gritted as if it is physically painful to speak, “but you have to come back. I—” His voice chokes and breaks, and Clarke feels tears prick her eyes. “I need you,” he says, and suddenly there’s no air in her lungs.

She thinks that’s the first time he’s ever said that to her. Bellamy is reserved, guarded with his words like if he dares to express affection the world will destroy it. He’s never _needed_ to say it, not like he’s needed to hear it; Clarke has always known that it’s true, even at her lowest moments. The way he treats her, like she’s simultaneously precious and indomitable, has told her everything she needs to know about how he feels about her.

And there aren’t words, really. For how they feel about each other.

But he’s said it, said _I need you,_ and despite all that, the declaration feels like a glowing ember that Clarke holds close to her heart.

It also feels like a concrete step towards something real, which is terrifying and far too big for Clarke’s exhausted body to handle right now.

“I can’t promise that,” she says. She won’t lie to him. But she pours all her remaining strength into the sincerity of her next words. “But I promise you I will always try.”

Bellamy nods a little, like he expected nothing less. Then he reaches forward and brushes a strand of hair off of Clarke’s sweaty face. It brings back memories of a time that was somehow simpler, a time when she always knew exactly where she stood. Or maybe that’s just the benefit of hindsight.

“Go to sleep,” he says. “I promise I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

Promises haven’t always worked out great for them. But as she dozes off, there is not a bone in her body that doesn’t believe this one.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for stopping by! As always, comments make me a better writer.
> 
> <3  
> Exo


End file.
